“Farming” Hard Drives: the Backup’s Backup Plan

This is not, despite the headline, about the discovery of some nanotech method for growing entire hard-drives or even simple components; rather, it’s about the employees of Backblaze, an online backup service, and how they, their spouses, friends, and neighbors spent months scouring local big-box stores in search of the hard-drives that were the lifeblood of the startup. The entire ordeal was recently chronicled over at the company’s site, and it makes for both an entertaining read and a revealing peek behind the scenes at what it’s like to run a scrappy internet startup company.

Why didn’t Backblaze just order drives in bulk from a distributor or manufacturer? Well, that’s what they originally did. Unfortunately, the flooding in Thailand in 2011 crippled production at the factories that produce the majority of the world’s hard drives. The loss of production capacity meant that the price of a 3TB drive suddenly jumped from $129 to $349, and for a shoestring startup that was adding 50TB of storage per day, that meant trouble.

The solution the Backblazers hit upon was to start hitting up the local Costco, Best Buy, and other consumer electronics retailers. Those big-box operations had large contracts with the manufacturers that meant they continued to be supplied with stock at pre-flood prices. Unfortunately, those places quickly limited the number of drives they would allow a customer to purchase, and also began banning Backblaze employees from buying drives. All of that meant that Backblaze had to expand their operation and begin recruiting family and friends as drive “farmers.”